The oldest electric locomotive in service leads you to the Valley of Hell
The preparations
As the Wien-Raaber Bahn reached the feet of the Semmering pass and later on, as the pass railway (the world's first-ever mountain railway) was developed, the flourishing, wet, lumber-heavy valleys in the area attracted loads of investors. Neusiedler AG wanted to build a paper mill along the Schwarza river to exploit the dense pinewood forests of the area and therefore the planning of a standard-gauge railway from Südbahn's Payerbach-Reichenau station to Hirschwang (the village at the feet of the Raxalpe, to house the paper mill) and a branch to Prien, both electrified by DC, was started.
